Monthly Archives: December 2016

Bok Choy

Photograph taken on Sunday, December 04, 2016 by Henry
Bok Choy

Bok Choy

Our youth group met in an international market this evening before returning to our regular location for pizza and the bulk of the meeting. At the store, we looked at seafood. I took a few pictures (I know, can you believe it?) including this one of bok choy or Chinese cabbage, Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis). I bought a Spanish mackerel, filleted (my post for tomorrow will feature that, actually) and some oyster mushrooms. There was also a bin with turtles in it. I thought of posting a picture of them, but too many people would have thought of them as pets and we were in a grocery store.

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Lizzy and Josh

Photograph taken on Saturday, December 03, 2016 by Henry
Lizzy and Josh

Lizzy and Josh

It’s December and that means all sorts of Christmas parties (or, if work-related, holiday parties, but that’s a post for another time). The first Christmas party of the season was with our church family. It was hosted by our pastor and his wife (and their kids, I suppose) and it was a full house. I honestly don’t know how many of us were there but it was a good crowd. Of course, being a pot luck, there was way more food than we could eat, although I guess some folks didn’t get to try things that ran our early. For me, the highlight was little smokies wrapped in bacon and then sprinkled with brown sugar and baked. Man, were those good (thanks, Joanna and Juan). There was an excellent cake, as well, made by Brigitte with candied cranberries on top. While the cake was excellent, to me the cranberries were the best part.

Naturally I took pictures and this is one I really like, a couple of wonderful young folk named Lizzy and Josh. I enjoyed sitting with them a while and chatting and I’m glad this pictures turned out so well.

Categories: Cross Community Rockville, People | Comments Off on Lizzy and Josh

Teabag Gown

Photograph taken on Friday, December 02, 2016 by Henry
Teabag Gown

Teabag Gown

Cathy and I drove down to Richmond this afternoon for our friend Emily’s photo exhibit in an art gallery there. Many of the galleries in Richmond have openings on the first Friday of each month so it’s a bit of a thing. It didn’t seem like there was as much action as there had been on previous First Fridays but that didn’t seem to hurt Emily too much. Her show was pretty well visited for the entire three hours of the official opening. Cathy and I really enjoyed seeing her work and of course also seeing her, her mom, and many of her friends.

We walked west on Broad Street as far as Boulevard, going into a few other galleries. The skirt of this gown is made from tea bags. It is one of two in a shop window and I couldn’t resist taking pictures. I took other pictures throughout the evening, of course, mostly of folks at Emily’s show. We drove back home again that evening so it was a long day, but well worth the drive.

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Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus)

Photograph taken on Thursday, December 01, 2016 by Henry
Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus)

Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus)

I happened to have a chat with a coworker today about taking pictures of birds and other small, skittish creatures. I have a 70-300mm zoom with image stabilization that should be quite good for that but it has one annoying limitation and a quite serious flaw. The annoying limitation is its lack of close focusing. Even at 300mm, to get a full frame image of a bird, you have to get fairly close. Having to add an extension tube to focus that close is an issue. The serious flaw is that the way Canon designed this lens, the internal connector that controls the aperture becomes damaged or disconnected and on occasion the lens fails to operate properly and no picture is taken. Because of that, I cannot recommend this lens. What I’d really like is Canon’s 400mm f/5.6 (well, I’d like the f/2.8 but who are we kidding?).

Anyway, I happened to go out a little later and was able to get this Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) in the bushes with my lowly 100mm f/2.8 macro. Not bad.

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